City Slang

Connect the dots

Despite the unfortunate cliché of the protest-happy folkie, the hallmark of a truly great singer-songwriter is not the ability to make us stop and think. Its the ability to make us feel. For example, Bob Dylans aversion to cannon fire doesnt move us. That sentiment alone is too obvious. Rather, it is the chilling ambiguity of his anti-war solution. The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.

And so it is with Jason Molina, a songwriter who thrives on using such ambiguity to push our most guarded buttons. Molina  who essentially is Songs: Ohia  paints lyrics in broad strokes that imply scenes and stories, but do not fully create them. Like an abstract painter with a wounded heart, Molina outlines his emptiness without specific detail. The listener must apply his or her own pathos  no matter how painful  to complete the picture.

With The Lioness, Molina has mastered this deceptively difficult approach. Building upon his excellent earlier work, Songs: Ohias fourth full-length release revels in the glorious sin of omission. "Im getting weaker / Im getting thin / I hate how obvious I have been," the opening track warns.

Indeed, the albums threadbare production seems to also be missing something significant. Organ and drums make occasional appearances, but most tracks are just Molinas fragile voice and a lone electric guitar. The effect is at once understated and overwhelming  like entering a room where a favorite painting has been secretly removed from the wall. Something important to you is gone, but you cant yet say what.

In todays cold climate of digital minimalism, Songs: Ohias emotional interactivity draws us in like good radio drama once did. But Molinas approach is also modernist. Eschewing the garish decoration that most contemporary singer-songwriters rely upon, Songs: Ohia lets the form truly follow function.

So, hello, Jackson Pollock. Goodbye, Jackson Browne. The times are once again a-changing.